132 NATURAL HISTORY 



tions, prospective contrivances, and yet there is no 

 thought, no instinct even, to guide. The dreaming 

 philosopher might talk of feet becoming webbed by 

 attempts to swim of wonderful changes produced 

 in ages by the law of progressive development. 

 The followers of Oken and Lamark, without the 

 science of their masters, may believe that their 

 ancestors were fish, and that they are not them- 

 selves denizens of the deep because some enter- 

 prising member of the family floundered out of the 

 water and forgot to return ; but even this accomo- 

 dating theory will give no explanation of all the 

 wonderful adaptations of parts by which individual 

 life is carried on, and the species propagated, in the 

 vegetable kingdom. The monad, by its desires, may 

 be fancied to pass through the varying stages of 

 oyster, fish, and ape, up to man himself; but that 

 the one-celled plant of our northern snow, or those 

 that abound in our pools, should suddenly become 

 ambitious, and be satisfied only by spreading like 

 the oak or blooming like the roses, is a far more 

 difficult problem for their accomodating philosophy. 

 Did you ever look into a single flower, the lily 



